Restoring ChatGPT chats in Codex

[RichardD]

After the mixup late last week, I decided to have a bit of a reset by moving ChatGPT and Codex to the trash, and downloading everything fresh on my Mac.

I can see all of my ChatGPT chats on the web (along with the new options for Chat and Work.)

I then downloaded the ChatGPT app fresh for Apple Silicon, which downloads “Codex.dmg” but when opened, contains ChatGPT.app, and has the Codex app icon in the dock (app is called “ChatGPT” though, both in the dock and in About).

When launched, the desktop app visually appears to be the updated Codex, with “Work and Codex” options in the sidebar. The app version in about reads: “Chat GPT Version 26.707.51957”

However, the items in the sidebar of the app are ONLY my Codex projects/chats.

So while I can essentially see my “ChatGPT” chats in the web, I can no longer see them in any way on the desktop.

Just wondering what the way forward here is? I mean, as a workaround, I can just use ChatGPT via the web/mobile and keep the desktop app for Codex stuff. But it seems like there might be an account split somewhere — where my ChatGPT account is a separate identity to my Codex account (even through they share the same email address?)

UPDATE:
I just noticed a new “Chat” in the sidebar, which I swear was not there previously:

When I click that, a new floating panel appears on the right of the window for a new chat. This panel has “Recent chats” and “See all”. Clicking “See all” shows me my list of ChatGPT chats!

So it can see them somehow. However none of my projects from “ChatGPT” (old) are accessible in this way (as I mentioned above, I can see them fine in the web interface).

UPDATE 2:

The ChatGPT Classic app is basically the familiar app from before, and displays all of my chats, and projects (but nothing from Codex). So pretty much the same as before the update from last week — ChatGPT for chatting, and Codex (aka “ChatGPT with the Codex icon”) for the new Work / Codex modes.

[notyless]

I see there is a dropdown where you can select Codex or ChatGPT.

[Yottalionaire1]

This exact issue is breaking the ChatGPT Work / Codex desktop app interface right now. I just lost visible access to a massive 9-hour intensive development sprint.

The project and task are still listed in my local sidebar context, but the core conversation canvas loads completely blank and hidden. The app accepted, processed, and completely burned my paid usage credits and tokens to execute the background work, but the unified desktop interface completely fails to paginate or pull the text blocks forward onto the screen. [1, 2]

OpenAI needs to treat this as a major technical billing regression—the desktop client is taking tokens, performing the work on the server, and rendering a completely blank state locally. This is an absolute blocker for professional workflows. [1, 2]

[OpenAI_Support]

Hi @RichardD

The app’s name and icon changes made finding your chats confusing. @Yottalionaire1, a blank conversation after a long task is a blocker too.

There was also an incident affecting conversation access and login on iOS and macOS around the time of the original post. It may have contributed to difficulty accessing chats then and has since been resolved.

Please try these steps:

1. Update the desktop app using Menu > Check for Updates, then fully quit and reopen it.
2. Select ChatGPT from the top-left menu, then Chat. Look under Recent for your conversations and Projects for your ChatGPT projects. Codex keeps its history in a separate view.
3. If you’re using Codex and Projects show No chats, select the filter icon next to Chats, then choose Chronological to check whether the missing conversations appear there.

Could you try again and let me know whether the issue persists? If it does, please share your current app version and which view is affected: Chat, Work, or Codex.

The desktop migration guide explains the current layout.

~ Ankit